Over the weekend, I rocked the motor forward with a jack and a block of wood so that I could get the front motor mount installed. It took a little bit of wiggling, but by separating the two pieces of the mount, I was able to then get it lined up enough to push the bolt through.
I also did some interwebs research and found a suggestion of using a 50/50 mix of ATF and Acetone as a penetrating oil. By putting some of that on the bobble strut bolt, I was able to remove the original bracket. Since the bushings were completely shot, I sawed apart the sway bar end links and used a couple of those bushings to isolate the strut from the relocation bracket. Again, I had to do some wiggling of the engine, but I was able to get the bobble in place. One thing to note is that the K-Member bracket did not have a large enough hole drilled through it for the bottom bobble bolt, so I had to drill that out a bit.
I’ve applied some of the penetrating oil to the transmission mount that is still in the donor car, but haven’t had any luck yet in being able to remove that. Once I get that out (or get a new one from somewhere), I’ll need to fill it with urethane and let it cure for a couple days.
The Energy Suspension products have arrived from Suspension Restoration and are ready for re-installation of the sway bar. The tie rod boots are a perfect fit, and I’ve removed the old busted boots already. Before putting those boots on, I do need to add some fresh grease to the joints. One of the ball joint boots is okay and does not need replacement, however, the other is torn up pretty bad. The Dorman Help! generic boots that I got are a close-ish fit, but not really good enough. I’m going to check the donor car to see if either of the ball joint boots are good enough to re-use, otherwise, I may try to get some from a junk yard.
I’m still making progress, but the main thing holding me up right now is that I don’t have all the parts I need sitting on the shelf. Priorities now need to be getting a transmission mount, filling that mount, and then tracking down a ball joint boot. I think I should also replace the rotors while I’m in there, since there was some nasty pitting on the existing ones. With all those parts on the shelf, it should be a pretty simple exercise in re-assembly.